Results tagged “buses”

Yesterday was first day on the job for new MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder, who decided to meet and greet subway riders at the Main Street subway station in Queens after meeting with MTA workers at the Corona Subway Maintenance Shop and the Casey Stengel Bus Depot. He spoke of "partnership with the MTA's hard-working men and women" to meet customers' expectations, promised an action plan the end of his first 100 days, and added, "New Yorkers should be able to expect the same type of customer experience riders enjoy in London"—whose transportation system he worked for between 2001-2006—"with accurate arrival information and modern fare technology." Hear that, New Yorkers—no more Underground envy!

Midtown bus riders will now get to enjoy the luxury granted only to L train commuters up until now—knowing exactly how long they'll have to wait at their stop with convenient nearby countdown clocks. Eight LED screens have been installed across 34th street, giving riders arrival times for the M34 and M16 buses. The project costs the city nothing since a technology company donated the screens and buses are already equipped with GPS. Mayor Bloomberg pointed out that the technology is "similar to that used to track military vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

There's nothing like the MTA to make you question your faith! So maybe the new advertisements for Atheism on city buses are appropriate. The campaign will take over 20 Manhattan buses for about one month, and president of New York City Atheists, Ken Bronstein, says the test run could be reaching other boroughs later this year (the group's website is taking donations for the next roll out). The ads read: "You don’t have to believe in God to be a moral and ethical person."

City buses in Manhattan might soon be catching your attention with new LED screens playing video advertisements along their sides as they ride about town. The MTA is about to test out the new ads on ten buses with hopes to expand to 200 buses with screens, which will they say will only be on the right side to avoid distracting other drivers. (No word on what happens if one bus is already another bus's right.) The screens will be equipped with a GPS, so ads can be adjusted for the neighborhoods they're driving through. An MTA spokesman said, "So if you're going down Lexington Avenue and the bus is at 65th Street, it could start advertising, hypothetically, Bloomingdale's." The screens have already began testing on the M79 in the Upper East Side, where residents are having flashbacks to the arrival of Kenny Rogers Roasters. One man told the Post, "It's just like you took my bed, and while I was asleep, moved it to the middle of Times Square. Neon signs are showing in my room. Bright, flashing neon."

The MTA announced it will no longer put security cameras on its buses. Back in 2006, the MTA announced a $5.2 million pilot program with Integrian to put video surveillance equipment on 400 Manhattan buses, and then, if successful, the cameras would be rolled out to the entire 4,500 bus fleet. Now the Post reports that cameras were installed on only 272 buses—plus Integrian has gone out of business (the MTA says the system had "all kinds of issues"). This comes after a bus driver was killed by a fare-beating passenger earlier this month and two other incidents of bus drivers being assaulted during robberies.

If you rode the V line on Sunday, you may have lucked out with a seat on one of the old 1930s-era subway cars deployed as part of the MTA's holiday train revival. But there's nostalgia rolling above ground too! Buses from the '60s and '70s are now operating during morning and evening rush hours on the M8, M14, M20, M23, M34, M42, M57 and M79 lines, and the Q32 in Queens, through January 2nd. A spokesman for New York City Transit tells the Post that while the older buses have less window space and weaker engines, they actually get better gas mileage than some modern buses: three miles per gallon of diesel, as opposed to two miles per gallon today. (Hybrids get about four miles per gallon.) Of course, the fare isn't vintage; a city bus cost 20 cents per ride until 1969, but these old timers have been retrofitted to take you $2 via MetroCard.

After much speculation and the local papers preparing commuters for what was to come, the MTA made their official budget proposal today and as expected, the cutbacks were dramatic. In addition to the slashing of the W and the Z lines among other cuts listed Tuesday, today's 2009 budget also included the following:

With the MTA's budget deficit now being projected at 1.2 billion (after an original prognosis of 900 million), the Daily News has learned that a report to be released Thursday will include what some are calling "Doomsday" cuts. The big one for many commuters is the elimination of the W line.

The sky is falling undergound! (And above ground, where the buses drive.) At an MTA finance committee this morning, officials announced that they're looking at a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2009, which is $300 million more than what was projected in July. Chief executive Elliot Sander says the dire fiscal situation was caused by a sharp drop in revenue from real estate and corporate taxes. Sanders also said that because "the 2000-2004 capital program was essentially put on a credit card," the MTA is facing massive interest payments which are projected to rise to $2 billion by 2012. According to City Room, Sanders warned that "if the governor and the Legislature do not act within a certain period of time, in the spring, then the fare and toll increase and the service reductions will take place." In a statement, Governor Paterson reminded New Yorkers that a special commission will soon release a report on ways to manage the MTA's "dire fiscal situation." One option under consideration is to start charging tolls on the East River bridges.

Underground there are shootings and stabbings and the subway stations may just generally be in a state of disaster, but at least the MTA can guarantee you a cool ride on its city buses. A study conducted by Transit Workers just released shows that New York City buses stay cooler on a more consistent basis than many other cities. The study showed that buses did not have working A/C less than 4 percent of the time, as compared to an average of 10 percent for cities nationwide. The most consistently cool buses were in Queens and Manhattan, possibly making a crosstown ride with your Unlimited the cheapest way to beat the heat.

In the first State of the MTA Address, MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander mentioned the agency would invest an additional $30 million in more subway service, new and extend bus service in the city and additional commuter trains for LIRR and Metro-North. Now the Daily News finds out the MTA probably won't be able to do so, thanks to the faltering economy.

New York City bus riders could soon be commuting just like the tourists if the MTA follows through on their tall talk about bringing double-decker buses back into circulation. The Post reports that NYC Transit President Howard Roberts floated the idea before the MTA board yesterday; the double-deckers are appealing because they fit more passengers and, according to transit officials, actually cost less to maintain.

Wow! Streetsblog attended the Department of Transportation's and New York City Transit's "co-presentation" of the city's Bus Rapid Transit program and discovered "A Transit Miracle on 34th Street."

DOT will repave and restripe for five lanes between Third and Ninth Avenues by the end of this year, with painted bus lanes on the north and south sides and three auto lanes in the center. Service hours will also be extended. Phase 2 calls for a 34th Street Transitway, closing the street to cars between Fifth and Sixth and installing pedestrian plazas. On either side of that block, there would be two lanes for cars heading in one direction -- toward the rivers -- while on the other half of the street, buses would have two extra-wide lanes separated from traffic. In other words, buses would constitute the only through traffic on 34th Street. According to Sadik-Khan, 34th Street BRT will eventually tie in to new East River ferry service (details to be announced next week).

An attempt by NYC Transit to communicate accurate bus arrival times has been partially abandoned out of concerns that it just was not feasible to accomplish by the MTA. A pilot program has been in place on six separate bus lines, but those notification services have been scrapped because the digital displays at bus stops were just not capable of providing accurate information to riders. While in the planning for a dozen years, the actual equipment wasn't rolled out until this past October. NYC Transit doesn't know when its notification system could come back online.